Department of Defence Delamere Civil Works

The Delamere Civil Works Project at Delamere Air Weapons Range is a road construction and floodway project situated in a very remote location, approximately 600 km by road south of Darwin in the Northern Territory. Much of the work was undertaken in a brownfield operational Defence Base however, actual operations were suspended during our construction activities due to the sensitive nature of the Air Weapons Range.

Our lump sum package of work included:

Construction and upgrade of 32km of unsealed roads

Borrow areas 30Ha

Footprint of the project covers an area of 301Ha

Earthworks of approximately 205,000m3 using 623 scrapers and DRT

Box culverts – 472m

Floodway & culvert concrete work – 777m3

Reno Mattress – 2,600 m2

Subgrade – 270,000 m2

Pavement – 496,000 m2 (2 layers)

The remote nature of Delamere brings with it a number of logistical challenges. All the equipment needed to be transported from Darwin, and the location of construction water, fill and pavement material was difficult. Additionally, seasonal restraints required the completion of the project before the arrival of wet season. Working within an area with known Explosive Ordinance Waste and Explosive Ordinance. This was mitigated through close coordination with the Explosive Ordinance Detection Teams who performed numerous scans prior to ground disturbance.

The following innovations were identified during the construction period:

An alternative to use precast concrete drainage structures in lieu of in-situ concrete to reduce client cost to supplier ready mix concrete;

Mobile waste water treatment plants were used to reduce cost for disposal of sewage (remote project);

Alternate borrow pits with ‘suitable’ pavement materials were identified and used. The team trialled and proposed cement stabilisation to improve non-conforming materials as an alternative to importing materials (trialled to prove placement of pavement in a single 300mm lift to mitigate project delays); and

Due to the non-compliant oversized fill and pavement materials identified within the scope, we proposed a method of secondary processing to enable non-conforming site materials to be used.

Through BGC’s robust and accredited quality management system, and dedicated quality resource the team maintained full compliance with all appropriate data and information captured within the Department of Defence’s Web FM and SDMP.